W3C UK and Ireland Regional Office

The goal of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is to lead the World Wide Web to its full potential. The W3C is the international industrial Web consortium, with more than 450 member organizations and a staff of 60 persons, spread across the world. Together, both Members and staff drive the development of specifications and software for the WWW through the more than 20 different "activities" of the consortium.

Member organizations of the W3C have an access to the detailed information pages on the W3C member website, where the most recent techniques in the area of the World Wide Web are discussed, and gain a better understanding of the technical details through a first-hand contact with the experts. Members can influence the future standards of the Web, through their Member vote, through their proposals to the W3C for new Activities, and through their participation in Activity Working Groups. Additonally Members can participate in the management of W3C through the half yearly meetings organized by the W3C for its Members (Advisory Committee).

The UK and Ireland Regional W3C Office is the regional contact point for W3C activities in the United Kingdom. It is one of the many regional Offices of the W3C, which also operate in the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Greece, Israel, Hong-Kong, Australia, Morocco, Taiwan and Sweden. The regional W3C Offices

• seek to ensure that the W3C and its specifications become known regionally
• forward any local feedback into the W3C.

The geographic spread of Offices ensures that the WWW and W3C itself become accessible to the whole world.

In particular, the UK and Ireland Regional W3C Office:

• supports local events (conferences, workshops, ...
• is a forum for the UK members of the W3C
• feeds local input back into the W3C
• spreads the results of the W3C through its newsletters and press releases
• organizes courses and tutorials on the latest W3C technologies, open to all interested parties in the UK.

Offices also seek to stimulate local industry to actively participate in the developement of Web technologies within W3C as Members. This participation is clearly of great importance to each region's industry as well as W3C itself.